


Indemnities

by ChaiFighter



Series: the time-traveling jonmartin apocalypse baby [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Adoption, Gen, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Parenthood, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), Time Travel, jon sims is a good parent and i will die on this hill, the relative morality of letting your kid time travel, transcript, with the knowledge that it may mean the erasure of your current reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25807210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaiFighter/pseuds/ChaiFighter
Summary: [FAR BELOW, THEY PLAN. THEY PLAN AND THEY SLIP AWAY, YOUR GRIP GROWS LOOSE, YOU ARE THEIR FATHER, YOU ARE THEIR DAD, YOU ARE–]ARCHIVISTStop it.[STATEMENT OF JONATHAN SIMS, THE ARCHIVIST, REGARDING RENÉ]
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: the time-traveling jonmartin apocalypse baby [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872331
Comments: 6
Kudos: 76





	Indemnities

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [SCENE: THE PANOPTICON](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24765982) by [faedemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faedemon/pseuds/faedemon). 



> Been working on a longer fic in this verse for months now, and yet this snippet I wrote in two hours last night is what gets published first. Sigh.
> 
> [The vibe for this one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRRhH_VS0SU) In case you couldn't tell, post-apocalypse parent!Jon makes me very emotional.
> 
> Update 8/16: Added work skin to mimic statement format from the unofficial TMA transcript archive

[CLICK]

[THE SKY GROANS LONG AND LOW. IT IS WINDY IN THIS TEMPLE]

[HOW MUCH OF THE WORLD CAN WE WATCH FROM UP HERE?]

**ARCHIVIST**

All of it. Obviously.

[EXCEPT THE PART YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT. WHY ARE YOU ABOVE, ARCHIVE?]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

You should hardly need to ask.

[A LONG, LOW HOWL, DISTANT AND TERRIBLE. FAR AWAY, THE VAST THING LUMBERS. JUST BELOW, THE CHILD PLOTS]

[STATEMENT OF THE–]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

No.

[STATEMENT–]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

_No._

[YOU’LL FEEL BETTER, JON]

[THE RISE OF STATIC]

[QUIET AND HOWLING. IT’S PEACEFUL UP HERE]

[FAR BELOW, THEY PLAN. THEY PLAN AND THEY SLIP AWAY, YOUR GRIP GROWS LOOSE, YOU ARE THEIR FATHER, YOU ARE THEIR DAD, YOU ARE–]

[A HITCHED BREATH FROM THE ARCHIVIST]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

Stop it.

[STATEMENT OF JONATHAN SIMS, THE ARCHIVIST, REGARDING RENÉ]

[A LONG PAUSE]

[STATIC. THE ARCHIVIST BREATHES.] 

[STATEMENT BEGINS]

**ARCHIVIST**

He did not mean to love the child. 

Saying it aloud feels like the worst sort of hypocrisy, but his dread of becoming his grandmother does not make the statement any less true. He did not intend to love the child. He did not even intend to Know them. And yet when he uncovered them in the ruin, one of the few whose parents had truly perished in the newly deathless world, all he could think was, What would Martin say?

What would Martin say?

He took the child home.

He was not a natural parent, he knew that about himself. He was abrasive, and demanding, and he didn’t even like most kids, really. He was terrified beyond words of reproducing his own cold upbringing on a child whose world he had already destroyed, whose mother he’d already killed, who he had already robbed of all chance at comfort, at happiness, at safety. He laid awake night after night turning it over in his mind, the sheer weight of atrocity he had committed upon this child who he was now inexplicably attempting to raise, until he remembered that he had done the same and worse to every other child in the world, and spent the rest of the night weeping in Martin’s arms and wishing desperately that he could bear giving René up. 

But he couldn’t. He didn’t know why. He just… couldn’t. 

So he didn't. 

It was not easy, raising René. They had no concrete age, very little sense of time, a keen eye and a damnable curiosity. They had a worrying tendency toward experimentation and exploration, the irony of which was not lost on him. _(Christ, Jon_ , Martin had said, _are you sure they’re not actually yours?_ ) They occasionally tried to keep various small fear creatures as pets. They hardly remembered a world without Fear. They loved stories. They loved the Eye. They loved their parents; they loved their Dad.

And he found that he loved _being_ a dad. He loved watching René learn, he loved answering their questions, he loved watching the little gears turn behind their eyes as they shifted around the world in their head to something that made a little more sense every day. He found he didn’t mind their constantly shifting age, found he liked chatting with different versions of them, like windows through time. He loved uncovering the new person they were slowly becoming as they grew. He loved making them smile. He loved carving out some small happiness in this strange, terrible future. 

He did not mean to love the child, but he loved them nonetheless, and he loved them more completely than anything in the world, and he– _[choking up]_ – a-and he wished he could be better than he was, he wished they had grown up in the world they deserved, he wished he weren’t so damned _stupid_ , h-he wished he could give it back, he wished, he wished he could–

He wished he hadn’t s-stolen– 

H-He– 

_[quiet crying]_

_[a long, long silence]_

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

_[rasping, tired]_ He wanted the best for his child. That’s all. 

[STATEMENT ENDS]

[LOW GROANING. WIND HOWLING]

[OTHERWISE, QUIET]

[THAT WAS NOT THE IMPORTANT PART]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

You only said regarding René. This was what I had to say regarding René. 

[A BRIEF SURGE OF HOWLING]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

You should Know by now to be specific.

[JUST BELOW, THE CHILD PLOTS]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

I Know. Are you going to help them? They won’t make it without you to show the way.

[ARCHIVE, MY ARCHIVE, MY CHILD. MY WORLD, MY SIGHT, MY TOWER]

[WHAT SHALL YOU ASK ME TO SACRIFICE?]

[THIS KNOWLEDGE CANNOT BE LOST]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

Well, you’ll have to make up your mind soon enough.

[THE CHILD PLOTS.]

**ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)**

I am aware.

[THE PLOT STRETCHES, THE PLOT TWISTS, THE PLOT CARRIES THEM FAR, FAR AWAY]

[WILL YOU ALLOW THIS, ARCHIVE?]

**ARCHIVIST**

_[deep breath]_ I want the best for my child. That’s all.

[QUIET. HOWL.]

[QUIET]

[SO DO WE]

[CLICK]


End file.
